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October 2003

10/22/2003

I've been following the reaction to the anti-Semitic remarks made by outgoing Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed. It has been disturbing to me to see people I usually agree with say this is proof that Malaysia, the country, is some kind of lost cause and/or that there is no chance Malaysia could become an example for other Muslim countries of how to move toward democracy without embracing fundamentalism. And it is true that Mahathir's remarks made it seem like Malaysia, instead of serving as an example of modernity to the rest of the Muslim world, has a government that wants to act more like the repressive regimes of the Middle East.

To me, it is as big of a mistake to believe that Mahathir's views are the views of Malaysians in general as it would be to believe that George W. Bush's views are the views of Americans in general. I've actually spent some time in Malaysia, and, although that doesn't make me an expert, it did open my eyes to the great diversity of the Malaysian population. It has a large non-Muslim community that may not be exactly loved, but seemed to enjoy relative freedom and prosperity and mutual respect with the Muslim majority. It has the beginnings of a competitive democracy, which is a lot more than you can say about a lot of other Muslim countries. It seemed to me like it was pulling off what a lot of people claim is impossible -- becoming a modern country while maintaining Muslim religion. And it has enjoyed relative prosperity through developing a manufacturing industry, not selling oil -- a much better way to build a real middle class and avoid rule by an oligarchy. With Mahathir leaving office, an opportunity exists to improve Malaysia's relations with the West.

It would be too bad if, in our zeal to rightfully condemn Mahathir, we ended up tossing over the side an entire country that we really should be looking to as a friend.

10/21/2003

I ignored George Will's column this weekend that pumped Bill Owens as a future presidential candidate. (Jeb Bush must have pissed somebody off.) But the folks at Rocky Mountain Progressive Network didn't. From their weblog (how about some linkage, guys?) comes this terrific takedown of Will's spin. Like they say, read the whole thing.

10/19/2003

I guess if I am going to set myself up as a Colorado political blogger I have to follow the blog tradition of making endorsements for the upcoming election. Oddly enough, my endorsements on the big three statewide ballot issues are exactly the same as those of the Rocky Mountain News, which is not exactly known for promoting an urban liberal Western Democratic point of view. But then, the three ballot measures don't really break down on traditional liberal-conservative lines. And the fact that my reasons for saying No to Referendum A, Amendment 32 and Amendment 33 are different from the Rocky's only underlines that point. So, on to the endorsements:

Referendum A: This is by far the most important issue on the ballot (although the Rocky thinks Amendment 32 is more important). Referendum A would authorize $2 billion in bonds to build new water projects. That means new dams, reservoirs and canals. (A small amount of the money would go to fixing existing dams.) It would also empower an unelected commission to select dam projects and require the governor to choose two of them for construction, with at least one project to begin construction in the next five years. So, one reason to vote no on the referendum is that there will be no further opportunity for the public to comment on dam sites -- passage of Referendum A is essentially a blank check to the governor to pick a new dam project and get it built without any opportunity for public input about the location or environmental impacts.

The bonds would be paid for by revenue from the sale of water. This sounds good because it means no tax dollars will be used, although presumably the state would be on the hook if for some reason a project failed economically. There are two important implications of the revenue bonds point: One, the projects could not be for drought relief; there will need to be steady customers to make sure the bonds get paid, and that means new customers. Two, as Ken Salazar writes in today's Denver Post, the projects inevitably will provide water for new growth on the Front Range; no other use will generate enough revenue to pay off the bonds. So although the referendum is being pitched as drought relief, really it is just a way to make sure surface water is available for more growth out here. I happen to believe that we are going to have growth on the Front Range no matter what, and we will have to make sure there is water for all of our residents, but the supporters of the referendum apparently don't want to have to make the case that we need to build new projects now for that reason.

There is one more, rather arcane point in Salazar's piece that is really the main reason there is so much opposition to Referendum A in western and southern Colorado -- the referendum does not provide for "basin of origin protection." In other words, the amendment would allow a project to be built in one drainage basin (for example, the Colorado River basin) but have all of the water delivered to another part of the state (for example, the Denver and Colorado Springs areas). Western and southern Colorado interests want to make sure they don't get completely cut out, and nothing in the referendum addresses their concerns. This is why Republicans like Scott McInnis of Grand Junction have joined with Democrats like Salazar and Mark Udall of Boulder to oppose the referendum.

Amendment 32: There is near universal agreement that the current initiative-created tax system in Colorado is broken. Next year we will likely be paging through numerous proposals to reform the logjam created by the so-called "Taxpayers Bill of Rights" ("TABOR") and the Gallagher Amendment, which caps property taxes. Amendment 32 is an attempt to take a first crack at the problem, but not in a helpful way. Under the Gallagher Amendment, residential and commercial property tax rates are linked. Amendment 32 would break the link and fix residential property taxes at 8%. This would actually be a small increase (the rate is currently 7.96%), but that isn't the reason I am voting no on 32. My reason for voting no is that this amendment seems to be intended to actually enable the legislature to make the situation worse by lowering commercial property taxes (to make the state more "business friendly"). They can't do that now without also lowering residential property taxes. That's probably why big corporations are the biggest supporters of the amendment. So unless you think it is a good idea to have residential property owners shoulder more of the burden so that Colorado can compete with low- and no-tax states for businesses that choose their location based on property tax rates, no on 32 would be the best choice.

Amendment 33: This is the easiest choice. This amendment would allow horse and dog race tracks to offer "video lottery," essentially slot machines. The Rocky Mountain News slices and dices this measure in its editorial, basically saying if you think it is a good idea to allow casinos at five new locations in the state, four of which are owned by the same British company, then you should support Amendment 33. Sure, the existing casinos are bankrolling the opposition; this whole thing is just fighting over the relatively small Colorado gaming business. I personally don't share the moral objections to gambling that a lot of other people have, but I don't see anything beneficial about having new casinos at the existing racetrack locations, and I think the proponents of Amendment 33 have been more dishonest than the opponents and shouldn't be rewarded for that.

How to Vote: This is an all mail ballot election. Voters are supposed to receive a thick packet containing the ballot and a return envelope. If you want to vote by mail, you need to complete and mail the ballot and fill out the "Affidavit of Voter" no later than October 31, because ballots have to be received by Election Day in order to be counted. Having the ballot postmarked by Tuesday, November 4 is not good enough! And you will need to put 60 cents worth of postage on the envelope. (You didn't think the state government was going to pay postage, did you?) If you miss the October 31 deadline, you will have to drop off your sealed ballot with an election judge at a ballot collection site, which are mostly at major grocery stores and DMV offices but also (for Denver residents) at the Election Commission at 200 W. 14th Avenue (across the street from the City and County Building). This seems pretty complicated to me; we'll just have to wait and see if it really increases turnout.

My plan is to change the front page photo on this site from time to time. In honor of the ongoing water wars in Colorado, I'm putting up a picture of the Colorado River in Glenwood Canyon near the Hanging Lake trailhead. Old timers might recognize that this photo was taken from a spot that used to be US Highway 6 through the canyon (looking upstream), before they built the Hanging Lake Tunnels that take I-70 away from this bend in the river. Here's a larger version of the picture:

When I took this picture I thought that if I put it up on the internet I would have to issue a disclaimer that just a couple of miles downstream from where this picture was taken, the flow of the river was just a trickle between some boulders. There is a little dam in the river just below the Hanging Lake exit on I-70 that causes the river to back up and look so still and full of water here. And a few miles below the trickle, the river was full of white water and happy rafters. But which picture would be more accurate -- this one, one from below the dam showing the little trickle, or one from downstream showing happy whitewater rafters? Really, with the Colorado River harnessed and controlled from source to delta, it is impossible to photograph the river without showing the influence of one or more dams. Every picture is going to show either an artificially large or small amount of water in the river.

So take this, and every other, picture of the Colorado River with that in mind.

10/17/2003

Oliver Willis can't believe anyone would think Saddam Hussein shouldn't be put to death for his crimes against humanity. And although Matthew Yglesias doesn't feel strongly about the issue, he wonders if it is possible for someone to oppose executing Saddam without embracing a total pacifist philosophy.

Well, I say don't execute him, or anybody else. And my reasons for opposing the death penalty are not based on religion. Mostly, I know the legal system too well to believe it is capable of producing correct results enough of the time to feel comfortable executing people based on the outcome of the trial and appellate process. But I admit that particular argument isn't terribly powerful in the case of Saddam Hussein, who is, as they say, certainly guilty of something that would qualify as a crime against humanity.

To me, the ultimate problem with the death penalty is that it reinforces the idea that killing people is the best way to show you are serious about something. That's an example we shouldn't be setting if we really hope to cut down on violent crime. (I don't think anybody seriously argues that the would-be Saddam-type tyrants of the world are going to be influenced by anything; I am talking about everyday people here.) Our society would be better, I think, if we considered ourselves above killing to prove a point. I think this is what the Catholic Church means when they speak of a "culture of life," although as I said before, it is not a religious issue for me.

To answer Matthew Yglesias' question, I would say my point of view does not require adoption of a complete pacifist outlook, although it is not incompatible with pacifism. There is a difference between violence in self-defense against someone bent on violence and violence directed against someone who has already been subdued and neutralized.

I've got a pretty long post up for your reading pleasure at Political State Report about the new Colorado River water sharing agreement and how it might affect the vote on Referendum A. You would think this would be a major problem for the supporters of the referendum, but it is hard to tell if anyone is paying attention. Maybe all you need to say is "Look! Californians want our water!" and you will get enough people that you can win a low turnout, off year election.

10/16/2003

Or at least, one less reason to vote for him. Wampum reports that Rep. Brad Carson of Oklahoma, a Democrat and an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation, will run for Oklahoma's open US Senate seat in 2004. If Carson can get solid support from Oklahoma's communities of color, he could get as little as one third of the white vote and still be the next senator from that state. And although Oklahoma has trended Republican in national elections, it still has a lot of registered Democrats and a centrist like Carson could be expected to do well there. (Steven Yellin has more on this at daily Kos.)

Which means, of course, that we could get rid of Campbell without having to worry that we were depriving the Senate of its only enrolled tribal member (Northern Cheyenne, although he lives on the Southern Ute reservation). If I recall correctly, Newt Gingrich's Contract with America called for the total destruction of tribal sovereignty, and I have always wondered if the GOP blackmailed Ben into switching parties by threatening to follow through on that part of the plan. Probably that wasn't the reason, and I actually think it would be harder for the Republicans to do something like that now than it would have been back in the early '90s when they were a lot more open about being the party of white rage. In any event, if you (like me) are a leftist who supports tribal sovereignty, you are better off supporting Carson's campaign and helping to "boot Campbell and elect Carson" as Wampum suggests.

10/15/2003

Since I've started blogging I've gotten even pricklier than I already was about the equation of Chicano/Latino issues with immigrant issues. LatinoPundit has the data to confirm what I already believed -- the massive growth in the "Hispanic" population in the United States is, contrary to popular belief, not primarily due to immigration. Instead, there has been a window, basically from 1970 through 2000, when immigration made "first generation Hispanics" the largest part of the population. Now we are back to the situation where birth, not immigration, is the primary factor driving population growth.

The Pew Foundation study is here in PDF format. What I find interesting is the table on page 6, which tracks the percentage of "first," "second" and "third-plus" generation Latinos over the past few decades and projecting out into the future. In the census years 1950 and 1960, "third plus" generation Latinos comprised almost 50% of the "Hispanic" population. (Yes, they did not have a "Hispanic" category in the census back then, but they did track people by, for example "Mexican" or "Puerto Rican" origin.) People need to understand that there is a very old Latino population in the United States, especially out here in the southwest, and stop thinking about Latinos as if we all just moved here in the last few years.

10/14/2003

I used to think the Supreme Court didn't care too much about everyday political calculations. Lifetime tenure means they don't have to care, and they are living in a rarefied world of legal theory that is very different from the partisan political world. Bush v. Gore ended that illusion of course. So it is easy for me to see today's decision to grant review of the Ninth Circuit decision that declared the inclusion of the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional as a pure political exercise.

It isn't as if the formulation of the Pledge is of monumental consequence to the future of the country. And unless I've missed something, the traditional Supreme Court criterion of a split in the circuit courts is unsatisfied in this case. But the timing of the expected ruling -- during the summer campaign season -- is perfect for the Republican Party. They can't lose on this one. If the Court affirms the Ninth Circuit, the Republicans can argue that the courts are still "too liberal" and that George W. Bush needs even more of an opportunity to load up the federal bench with conservatives. And, if as is more likely, the Court reverses, the Republicans still win because not only will they be able to bash dissenters and tar Democrats with guilt by association with them (I'm thinking Ginsburg is a likely dissenting voice), they can use this case as a wedge issue that divides Democrats. Practically all Democratic officeholders and candidates will feel compelled to support including the words "under God" in the pledge. There will be a small group of people on the left for whom separation of church and state is such a hot button issue that they will withhold their support from any Democrat who doesn't agree with them on the Pledge issue. And in a close election, every vote will be important. So, give credit to the partisan political acumen of the conservative members of the Supreme Court (not including Scalia, who was recused), and if either Clinton appointee voted to take the case, he or she really could use a lesson in the electoral politics of the court.

(Yes, I know that theoretically they might rule the non-custodial father doesn't have standing to bring the case. But does anyone seriously believe they took the case to make law on standing? Really, the fact that there is a standing question shows that the Court should have denied review in this case.)

10/13/2003

Forget about "red states" vs. "blue states." Cowboy Kahlil has an electoral college map that actually makes sense. He took states that gave more than 55% of the popular vote to Bush or Gore and marked them as "true" red or blue states. The states in between were marked in yellow, except that Minnesota and Washington, which came close to giving Gore 55%, got marked light blue, and Louisiana, which came close to giving Bush 55%, got marked orange. This gives a much clearer picture of the battleground -- it is mostly the mid-Atlantic states, lots of the midwest, plus a number of Western states -- Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and of course Colorado, where GWB got only 51%. Ralph Nader did pretty well in Colorado last time around, and I'll bet almost all of his supporters pull the lever for whomever the Democrats run next time. A smart Democratic nominee will do what Clinton did in 1992 (and what Gore failed to do in 2000) -- take the interior West seriously. Clinton carried a number of Western states (including Arizona, Colorado and Nevada), and as this map shows, just a little success out West can mean the difference between victory and defeat for the Dems in 2004.